Bracket Racket

A reasonably easy to follow bracket layout on NHL.com illustrates the Men’s Olympic Tourney for us. Obviously, Canada has paved an incredibly difficult road for themselves thanks to their dissapointing loss to the US on Sunday. They now need to go through three teams just to get to the finals, with good odds that two of those teams will be major contenders; Russia and Sweden.

Canadian fans suggesting the loss to the US was a good thing were obviously hallucinating badly. Russia, led by superman-on-a-mission Alex Ovechkin and Sweden, reigning Gold Medalist led by Henrik Lundqvist who has yet to give up a goal in the tournament, will not go gently against leaf emblazoned all-stars.

Meanwhile, the US, by playing so well up to this point, have remarkably increased their chances of getting to the gold medal game with a bye today and their first game tomorrow against the winners of today’s marquee Swtzerland vs. Belarus match-up. Their biggest test should come in the semi-finals against the Fins or Czechs. Right now, my money is on Team USA getting to the finals and if I had to wager on the other side, I’d give Russia the edge to be their opponent.

Sorry, Canada, no disrespect, but your guys are an outside shot for any medal at all at this point. Just the way I see it.